Providence Journal may have new owner...

And apparently GateHouse is the winner. I'm going to hang up and listen.

http://www.golocalprov.com/business/providence-journal-sold-to-gatehouse-sources-tell-golocal

 

Designers can kiss their job goodbye. They have a design center that they're going to be starting in Austin,Texas.

 

Sadly, Outhouse Media now has another paper to gut like a fish. I feel sorrow for the good folks at the Journal. Whether you are a solid, dedicated employee will not matter. They will get rid of most of the people making any kind of a decent wage and keep on a shell of low-paid staff to put out a sub-par product. Happens every place this plague of a company takes over.

 

From what I've heard, there ain't exactly anyone there who's struggling to make ends meet.
Still, I don't know how they can gut that thing any more than they have, especially to cover the entire state.

 

Yes, they can gut more.

http://www.golocalprov.com/business/providence-journal-sold-to-gatehouse-sources-tell-golocal

Basically the article says that current newsroom staffing is about 160. The Providence paper is has a litttle more than twice the revenue of Worchester, which Gatehouse just bought. In Worchester a week after the purchase Gatehouse reduced editorial staff from 91 to 63. Assuming the same ratios of staff to revenues that means about 15 to 20 go in Providence.

 

My guess is the days of having dedicated reporters focused on one topic (I.E. political reporters or business reporters or those focused on education) are the first to go. Ditto to the union and its stranglehold on large salaries and staffing requirements (Ala reporters can't take photos).
It seems to be a consensus that the design and copy editing positions are gone so that's essentially two whole departments and I'm sure they get rid of some of their columnists who ONLY do columns.
The big question is if they shrink the size and number of sections of the paper of if they just fill it more with wire reports.
Either way this is a big blow for the state. The Projo hasn't been anything like what it used to be but my guess is it's about to get a whole lot worse. And with an election right around the corner, it's going to be interesting to see what happens going forward.

 

Halifax, not GateHouse, bought Worcester.

GateHouse now owns everything immediately south and west of Boston. Framingham, Brockton, Taunton, Providence, Fall River, New Bedford, Hyannis, Quincy. It's frightening how firm their grip is on that region.

 

Sorry about my mistake on ownership.

Do the other papers and the Providence papers have overlapping sports beats on the Patriots, etc?

 

The ProJo just hired a new Patriots guy - Mark Daniels from The Herald - and have two very, very good baseball guys in Tim Britton and Brian MacPherson. The preps coverage is down to two reporters - John Gillooly and Carolyn Thornton - and there are two columnists - Bill Reynolds and Jim Donaldson - and a college hoops/golf guy in Kevin McNamara.
I can't imagine that staff being whittled down unless they drop the pro guys and go with one of the other chain's reporters.

 

If they already have people at other papers covering the Pats, Sox, Celtics or Bruins, then I imagine those reporters would probably be re-assigned or laid off. It would be a shame if they got rid of Reynolds; I think he is a unique asset that they have that moves papers on his own. Growing up, I always picked up the Saturday edition because I knew he would have that old bulleted column with references to Bunky.

I think there is an argument to be made that once The Journal decided to close its local bureaus in the 90s and 00s, it made sense to re-trench as a paper that really covered the shit out of Providence, the state house and statewide issues. However, they didn't do that, and I don't think Gatehouse is the company good enough to implement that. (Meaning, I think they're more likely to cut to the bone on everything.)